Wednesday, November 21, 2012

How terribly twee!



I think they're so sweet and everyone has time on Christmas Day to do this, make Christmas Tree Potatoes.  This is why they call it the 'Silly Season'.

Friday, November 16, 2012

I'm not really a believer but.....

I've been following Link's astrology on her blog and she's been spot on lately.  We all know that astrology isn't science buuuuut, my stars this November were all about house and home.  
Strange things have been happening and I swear there is a black hole in the universe of my bedroom.
1.  I dropped the lid of my lipstick at my feet and it's disappeared. It must be under the bed but a sweep with the broom revealed nothing.
2.  Last night my small night stand wobbled a bit then the one screw holding the whole lot together appeared to unscrew itself and I now have two pieces of night stand. The screw is not screwing back so I have to find another of the exact size but also somehow glue it in.
3.  This morning while putting on my earring the clip of one went ping and disappeared. I looked in my slippers, the bed and down my bra, nothing.
4.  A week ago my dressing gown caught the small photo of my son that stays on the nightstand so I looked on the floor, the hem of the gown and the bed.  It's gone, I haven't found it yet. I tried the sweep under the bed thing again, nothing. And no, I can't lay on the floor to look with a torch, I'm not that fond of pain.
And then we have the house.
5. I wondered how I managed to get wasps inside the bathroom.  The window is open but there's no screen. As the Bwca would say, bad men did it and ran away.  I think the storm did it which means the little doodads holding it on have broken and I need a whole new screen otherwise the bathroom will turn into mould central.
6. A sunny day, great, hang out the washing for a lovely clean smell. Holding the wire on the Hills with one hand and reaching for the sheet with the other and the wire breaks and I go flat.
Which reminds me I haven't brought the washing in yet and the wire is still trailing through the grass. 37 years that wire has been there, doesn't anything last any more?
7.  This might not qualify since it happens regularly. My chair fell off its bricks, while I was in it.
You want frustrating? Try lining up four chair legs with four bricks and centre them.  It can be done but only by using words of four letters and repeating until finished. Why is it on bricks, I hear you ask?  It was on wheels but I fell over, hit the chair which fell over and the wheel splintered the wood it was jammed into.  I tried putting a couple of books under the wheeless leg but the other wheels kept spinning round so I took all of them off and brought in the bricks.
And all this after the lights fused and the dustbuster fritzed.
And my sister cracked a fetlock walking home from work Saturday night, not applicable to me really except that Karma's a bitch and just bit her on the fibula.
It might be time to break out the Tarot cards, take a look at the Angel Oracle and find my essence in the Druid Plant mythology.  On the other hand Link could give me better stars for December and find my earring clip.

Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Oz wins again.

This image was taken by Thierry Legault in Queensland and it worked because he had the rising moon behind him.
The Wallaman Falls has a moonbow from moonlight shining through the mist just like a rainbow.  Above the ridge is the horizontal streak of an aircraft and the bright downward streak is a meteor.  Behind the meteor are the stars, nebula and the band of the Milky Way Galaxy circling the sky.

And for anyone interested in more shots like the last post this is where you'll find them.

Tuesday, November 13, 2012

A real cracker.

This is my current favourite desktop wallpaper and it was photographed over our own Corio Bay by James Collier.  He said the crack of the lightning was so loud he almost fell out of his car and wasn't sure if he even clicked the camera.  I'm so glad he nailed this shot, fantastic. 
If I ever had a tattoo, it would be this, my true nature. 
And for those who are terrified of lightning, tomorrow I'll post tarantulas to calm you down.

GO CLEM!

Lookee here, only Tuesday and I'm ready to curl up in a corner and cry until I read this.

I'm sitting in my usual spot, taking tea and a muffin (small) after a particular harrowing morning when my health educators decided to beat me over the head with threats of laproscopic surgery as a cure for all ills.
A largish girl sits beside me with a bottle of water and a sandwich and mentions how brave I am to eat "fat food" in front of the wandering Southland population.
I nearly swallowed the muffin whole, it was that small.
She never eats like that because she always scared that someone with a mobile phone will photograph her and she'll end up on a Farcebook wall, shamed without being named.
I very nearly got up and bought another muffin in retaliation for the nation of morons that think it's okay to do that to someone half my size and we all know how much I can fill out a bench seat.

When I think back 20 or so years before we all found out how evil Macca's was to eat, I'm appalled at how much of that I would eat in one meal and it was only once a week. If I added up the kilojules in today's money I'd probably have a heart attack on the spot. It was a Saturday ritual.  After shopping out Southland, we'd grab a load of take-away and head for the beach and eat.  We didn't think anything of it, never questioned how much salt, sugar or what the burgers were made of, it was cheap, quick and great to eat watching the waves.  I wouldn't do it now even if they say how much everything has changed regarding the ingredients. 

But if I want to sit and eat a muffin, with black tea or an ice coffee and if I'm really hungry, add a sandwich then I'm going to.  I just wished that girl hadn't been so frightened of social media that she couldn't enjoy a small treat.  I was too polite to ask what she did in the privacy of her own home, stick with the water or hit the fridge in a Friday night ice-cream binge.  
I am so sick of people's opinion of the "obesity crisis", "diabetes scourge" and how we're all going to die because the fat people are breathing too much air.  

As for the surgery, let me know when they invent a lap band for that part of the brain with the big red button that screams "eat" whenever I'm stressed, depressed and fed up with people.  

Wednesday, November 07, 2012

Gone with the Wind and thank goodness.

 Once again I forgot to take the
before shots with the old clothes
but this is our doll with just her
cammies on.
The hair is just not able to be
combed so I just cut off the
scraggy ends and made sure
there were no spiders.
The trick is to make the clothes then decide
what goes on first. In this case it had
to be the hair up and the hat made.
 Here she is in all her finery and showing her the soft
green silk petticoat which went over the cream silk
petticoat which went over three layers of tulle.
And I can tell you I'll never make a ballet tutu, I hate handling tulle unless it's pure silk tulle and that's a whole other ball game. That ruffle was hand stitched.
At seven of the clock this morning, I decide, half awake, that she isn't finished without a trailing bow.
And here you can see the back of the finished hat. It was finished with just a silk bow but it needed a ribbon rose.
Her hair is now in a net fastened with pearl and diamonte pins.

Not a good photo of the hat but it's made from the green lace in the overskirt with off white feathers and while I hand stitched every inch, I drew the line at plucking chickens.  There are hand made ribbon roses, pleated georgette and pleated dress lace.  Around the brim I stitched pearls.
 This didn't show up as well as it should have.  The lace is pleated down the bodice of green velvet, finished off with a strip of guipure lace and stitched with loops of small pearls.
The bottom of the bodice jacket is also stitched with pearls as are the sleeves.  'Leg of mutton' sleeves at the top, pearls and tapered sleeves at the bottom which had to be the last thing stitched.
The brooch can be taken off and worn by the next owner.

 Don't look at the floor, by the mess I should have been
completing an entire Paris couture collection instead
of one doll. Trouble was sometimes I needed her to be high up then low down.
The lace in the overskirt is fine net with embroidered
flowers and silver spinkles.  Around the bottom are
diamonds which had to be glued on leading to an
unfortunate experience involving my hair and the glue
stick I was holding in my mouth.
And back where we started with the hat.
Don't look at the floor, didn't I tell you.

She's now safely at the Home, behind glass and hopefully will make a lot of money for the activities fund being first prize in the Christmas Raffle.  The girls are canny, they have decided on a cash grab by having a small lottery on who comes closest to her name
which hasn't been decided yet, Scarlett or Charlotte.


Monday, November 05, 2012

Wasn't there supposed to be a "Rapture"?

Not the grey rapture everyone is reading but the other one where all us saints ascend into the great but glorious "Above".

I must be going there because I've been to hell.  It's full of little old ladies with a multitude of personalities that take turns.  Sweet one minute, Chucky the next.  Speaking of Chucky that doll I'm dressing is turning into Bride of Chucky.  While I was updoing the hair this afternoon, its arm fell off and I spent the next hour sewing it back into the rubbish stuffing of the upper bit and ended up glueing the damn thing in.

Little old ladies, you've heard the tales of Annie Joyce and Eva, henceforth to be known as Butch and Sundance.  Mother is not well, she's in pain in the spine, goddess knows why, she's taking enough painkiller to knock out Black Caviar so I go down dragging sundries she needs.  
Quiet afternoon until Butch and Sundance decide to make a break for it.  There are three doors to get through and one has to be unlocked by a code.   

'Can you reach the handle?'
'No.'
'If we could just reach the handle  I could help you across the road'
'But I'm not going across the road, I'm going to the bus stop'
'But you have to cross the road for that unless you're going the other way'
'You don't have to look out for me, you've got further to go'
'No I haven't'
'You don't know where I'm going so how do you know you haven't got further'
(let me interrupt and tell you why they can't reach the handle.  Both of them have their walkers in front of them, between the door and the handle)
'Are you sure you can't reach the handle?'
'No.'
'If we could just get the door open, we'd be on our way home'
'Well we can't reach the handle'
'If we go round the corner where the window is (nurses' station) we can go down the stairs (concrete floor) and come up the other side and we wouldn't need the handle'.
Butch and Sundance turn their walkers in synch like cheer leaders at a football match and make for the stairs.
Half way there, Sundance comes to a dead stop, 'where's my bag?'  
Butch denies having seen it.
They both agree it must be down the stairs on the other side of the door.
Slightly further on.
'I could do with a cuppa'
'Is it tea time?'
'We could go and find out if we don't go down the stairs'
'The tearoom is better on this floor'
'Oh well, if you say it is, I wouldn't know about the tearoom downstairs'.

My mother can't hear a word of this and can't understand why I'm sprawled across the table trying not to laugh out loud.  I wouldn't dare laugh anywhere near them, they'd have me run down in a minute flat or ten.
Don't bother leaving comments about how unkind I am, it's the only laugh these two have given me since they arrived. 

Saturday, November 03, 2012

I love LOLcats!

Who needs Alfred Hitchcock or Stephen King when there are LOLcats that say it all.